


The Ocean's Wrath

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2345255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But Uinen wept for the mariners of the Teleri; and the sea rose in wrath against the slayers..."</p><p>Maglor's thoughts on the journey along the coast, after the kinslaying at Alqualondë.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ocean's Wrath

Lightning flashed, and the deck rolled and pitched wildly under his feet, the ocean roaring all around like a living thing. 

Macalaurë lost his balance as he stood on the foredeck, grabbing desperately at the gunwhale as the sudden light in the sky momentarily blinded him, lighting the towering waves from behind. The wood was slick under his hands, and he nearly lost his grip, the waves tossing the ship up and down, almost sending it tumbling over and over like a paper boat in the raging torrent of a river.

It must have been by sheer force of will alone that they had clung on, he thought later. At that moment he was thinking little, solid wood and sailcloth, air and icy water that stung like a slap to the skin mingling in turmoil about him where before the different parts of their world had been defined, separate and orderly.

 _We are being punished._  That was all he could think, the simple idea rattling around his head, sending up a clangour in his skull, behind his eyes.  _It is her, the lady of the seas._  He did not know how he knew this, but he did. He recognised her work, her furious song of revenge in his ears.  _She who was once merciful, who kept even her tempestuous lord in check… have we done so much wrong that we have awakened her wrath?_

 _Yes,_ said the voice in his head, its tone high and mocking, audible even over the screaming wind.  _You have done so much wrong that you will go down into the roiling ocean; not even when your body is rotting on the sea bed and your fëa is locked deep within the grey halls, never to sing in the light again, not even then will this blood be cleansed away._

The wooden boards of the deck were slick too, and, Macalaurë thought irrationally, it must surely be the blood of kin beneath his feet. The sea was trying to wash the wood clean. 

Even in the roaring, he could hear music, great and terrible, primal as the wrath of the One who had sung the world into being, drawing it and shaping it from the cold ocean before there was anything else. That ocean had been black, black as the night-blindness that seized him in the moments when the lightening did not rip through the sky like a wound.

The world  _was_  wounded now, and they were to blame. They had ripped a hole in the order of the One, and they were no match for the raw, crushing power of salt water and the wind and the dark, the power that had been before the world. 

If he survived this, he thought, he would write down that song, that terrible tearing that they had made of the world, the song born from an ocean of blood and salt. He would remember, not because it would bring him solace, for it would not, it would only bring him pain; but because he  _had_  to remember. Even if he was the only one left alive, for then  _someone_  had to remember. The sound of wind screaming in the rigging, of fear, fear for his life, desire for it to end even as he clung desperately to the only solid thing in this terrible new, broken world. 

He had bitten his lip; he tasted blood and salt, and breathed as much water as air. His throat burned. Were his brothers alive? Was his father? He could not let himself imagine that they were  _not_ , their deaths were unthinkable, and yet… how could any resist the inexorable pull of the sea, dragging at him, tearing, pulling him into the black to be subsumed in a roiling torrent of divine justice. 

And then, without warning, it ended. Macalaurë felt himself spilled down onto the deck one last time, landing painfully hard on his back on solid wooden planks. It knocked the breath out of him, such as he had. But something,  _anything_  solid was like an answered prayer in that turmoil, that cacophony of deafening sound.

He scrabbled at the mast, wrapping his arms about it and clinging desperately, coughing water as salt burned at the back of his throat, crying out with a voice that was hoarse as the scraping of metal on wood. 

They would live, he knew then, the whole thing coming clear before him, unspooling in his head tempered with horrible foreboding. The powers had other plans for them. There were slower ways that they could take their vengeance, and worse griefs would come to them than foundering in the furious black sea. 

The thought was not a kind one. And yet, Macalaurë had sworn an Oath, and made a promise to himself. 

His path was set, in more ways than he could count.


End file.
